Monday, July 2, 2007

It seems that with each passing day Google keeps getting bigger and bigger, and keeps gobbling up start-ups and churning out cool products. And everyday we become more and more dependant on them. Once upon a time, Google used to be just our search engine of choice, now its our email provider (GMail), feed reader (Google Reader), blog host (Blogger), entertainment provider (YouTube), and a hell lot more. And not surprisingly more and more people are trying to move away from them, or at least wondering if its possible. So let's take a look at some of the alternatives we have for Google's services.

1. Web Search: Search is Google's core business and they are best at it. Alternative search engines do exist and a handful of them work amazingly well, but the problem is each of them only suit a few people really well, and are practically a nightmare to use for others. Refer to Read/Write Web's Top 100 Alternative Search Engine list to find one that suits you.

2. Image Search: When looking for photos try Flickr or Zooomr. These two happen to have the best collection of photos on the web. Smugmug is also a great one. If you're looking for images rather than photographs, try Snap Images.

4. Google Video: Since Google also owns Youtube the only other good alternative seems to be DailyMotion. DailyMotion is as old as YouTube, and although its not as popular as Youtube, it has a loyal following, and it always has new and interesting videos to waste your time.

5. Google News: If you always want the latest news, the best thing to do would be to add news feeds to your feed reader. If you prefer getting your news from one single site try Newsvine. Not only does Newsvine have all the latest news, its layout and design is also easy on the eyes. Newsvine's strongest feature is its columns which, although written by the users, are always surprisingly well-written, thought-provoking, and witty.

6. iGoogle: Google is a late entrant into the personalized homepage market, and as such, there are a lot of rival products that are better than iGoogle. My own personal favorite happens to be Netvibes, which is light years ahead of iGoogle in terms of ease of use, features, and aesthetics.

9. Blogger: Wordpress is an open source blogging platform that is used by some of the largest blogs on the web, include several corporate blogs. You can use Wordpress on your own web server, or use Wordpress.com to get a free hosted blog. Several other freewordpresshosts also exist.

10. Google Docs and Spreadsheets: Zoho Office Suite not only has a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications but also database, note-taker, wiki, CRM and many other applications. All applications can be used as standalone products, or with other applications. Zoho Office suite also proves their word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications for use on the iPhone as iZoho.

12. Google AdSense: Bidvertiser and BidClix, are two alternatives to AdSense that let you become an Ad Publisher for free and start earning money. Yahoo! Publisher is also a great alternative that has great payment options, including checks, direct deposit and Paypal.

13. Google Analytics: IceRocket's Blog Tracker is perhaps the only free alternative to Analytics that is even close to being as extensive and useful. Blog Tracker is easy to use and is under active development (although their blog doesn't seem to be updated often). I, myself use both and find myself using Blog Tracker for often, only using Analytics when I need an in-depth view about my blog's stats.

All in all, although there are many alternatives present, only a handful of them are better than or as good as Google's offering. And until some of Google's rivals become more innovative, we are stuck with Google. Although its not so bad, after all what other company has a corporate motto that says "Don't be Evil".

87 comments:

What i like about Flickr is the choice to search within Creative Commons-licensed photosThat makes it really easy to search for stock photos for work.

About wordpress, i like it more than blogger. Blogger is easier to learn and simple to setup, but wordpress has really got a lot more functions and a lot more choices when you want it to look different. I've seen a couple of wordpress blogs that were changed visually so much that i didn't immediately recognize them as wordpress.

I must say i did not know about netvibes- or the fact that there where alternatives to iGoogle but it looks like i will be switching sometime soon, netvibes looks and works amazingly better.

One question about Blog Tracker though, because it's not really mentioned in their site, (they use the word blog in almost every sentence).I use Google analytics for my personal site and those of some clients. Could someone use it for that use as well or is it specifically designed for blogger/wordpress use?

Good alternative for Adsense is PeakClick. Want some reasons to join, here are just a few: Sign up is free, Extremely easy to set up and implement, Real time statistics, One of the highest pay out rates in the industry (70%), One of the top affiliate programs (earn commissions on 3 separate sales levels), Get paid every 15 days, High quality customer service and technical support.

Inbox.com is a great alternative to gmail. It offers all that gmail, yahoo and hotmail offers and provides 5GB free of web space. I have used it for years now and it is great. Its not as web 2.0 as the new yahoo UI but it is still great. http://www.inbox.com.

Google make some great tools guys but there are some really exciting sites out there and that is what makes the web so great right. So this whole sign in and stay in BS that the big players promote is not cool. Only thing it really saves on is the extra logins I guess. The web is about discovering cool things. Great article.

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